Runeblade-Chapter 220B2 : Looting and Leaving, Finale

Kaius stared at Porkchop with a slack jaw, trying to process the words that had just been said.

Did he just hear him say they should tell Rieker?

Sitting in silence, his mind raced. While he had intended to tell the guildmaster about their aspects eventually—he’d meant to do it after they had all acquired one, and secured an Honour for themselves.

If they told him now, he’d have questions. Namely, why it was so important for Porkchop to found his Aspect Corporus as soon as possible. Even if Rieker had been understanding about the exact specifics of the nature of their strength, it would be in his duty to see if it was something he could repeat—use to empower the guild.

Kaius couldn’t in good conscience lie to the man.

There was much that the man knew, but Honours were something else. If the man wasn’t already suspicious of their involvement in the phase change, he would have to be a moron not to suspect something if they let Honours slip.

Plus, there was no way they’d be able to pretend that the only Honour they had received was from founding their Aspects—his and Porkchop’s unnatural strength was too blatant to try that on, Rieker would see through it immediately.

His heart sped up at the very thought of it, kicking inside his chest as he thought of the consequences.

Who knew what the man would do. Regardless of their lack of intent or control over the situation, it was still a catastrophe. A change that had impacted everyone. It was hard to imagine that someone as involved in the culling of monsters as the guildmaster wouldn’t take umbrage to their role in the rapid increase in danger.

Not even just that, Honours were inherently a race. First bonuses were potent, and if word got out that they existed, it was all but certain that they would lose to someone at some point. There were too many scions and powerhouses with the backing of entire dynasties—they would leverage anything they could to secure another edge.

Feeling the rising tension building behind his eyes, Kaius forced himself to breathe. He turned his attention to his brother, who’d been watching him cautiously since he’d shared his desire to ask for help.

“Okay…you want to tell Rieker. You’re aware that if we did that, it’d most likely take us to the point where we have to share the existence of Honours? I thought we’d intended to try and secure as many bonuses as we could before we even considered that.” Kaius said slowly, doing his best to reign in his feelings. Porkchop had trusted him in bringing this to him, and to react in fear or anxiety would be a disservice to their bond.

Porkchop shook his shoulders, burning off some of his unease.

“I know, but the longer I think about it, the more I am unsure if we’re making the right choice by keeping them to ourselves.” he replied.

Kaius took a deep breath, rubbing the ball of his hand into his forehead.

“Porkchop, I know that the secrecy of the central lands is strange to you, but we can’t burn every advantage we have to do the right thing. At least not until we are strong enough to handle the repercussions. If the guild started pursuing Honours, no matter how secretively, it will get out. Then people will wonder where they learned about them.” Kaius said slowly, hoping that his brother would understand where he was coming from. “That’s not even considering the fact that we’ll almost certainly lose out on more bonuses.”

Porkchop shook his head, firm conviction bleeding across their bond. “I’m not sure if you’re right. I promise I've thought about this—hear me out, at the very least.”

Kaius paused. If this wasn’t just Porkchop having a flight of fancy due to a worry that he might miss out on an Honour, then he could do that at least.

He gave his brother a nod, whose shoulders relaxed.

“Thank you. First, Honours will get out anyway—we can’t stop the others who are in the first five to complete an Aspect from learning about them. Sure, there’s a good chance they won't even be on Vaastivar, and they might keep it to themselves or their Dynasty, but people will learn. That means the competition already exists, and others will likely grow strong in much the same way we have.”

He supposed that was true—but it still didn’t feel like enough justification to spread it widely, and make it obvious that they had discovered honours too.

Before he could bring it up, Porkchop continued talking.

“It’s not just that, either. If we bring this to the guild, they will be in our debt—it is the greatest discovery of a millennia, and potentially far more rewarding than Aspects in the long run.”

“Is something as nebulous as a debt worth losing our advantage?” Kaius replied, his brow furrowed.

“Kaius, the second that someone else earns an Honour, the advantage will have already been lost. At least if we share with Rieker, we will at least be helping to nurture powers that are supposed to be our allies.”

His jaw flexed, teeth grinding as he swallowed his frustration. It was hard to deny that they would be unable to keep Honours entirely secret—he could admit that much. Yet he couldn’t help but shake the deep seated sense that to do so would be wrong. Even sharing their existence with Three Fields—with people he trusted and loved—had been difficult to stomach. Doing the same with as large an organisation as the guild had him on the verge of panic.

Because there would be no way that Rieker would keep the existence of Honours private. Sure, he would be oath-bound to hide their involvement, but all it would take would be one curious senior member to do a little bit of investigating to discover the man had a new team of proteges.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I’m—I'm not sure, Porkchop. My gut says it’s too risky. You said you’re on the verge of your Aspect already, is it truely so important? There will be more Honours in our future, even if you miss this one.”

Porkchop growled softly in frustration. Leaning forwards, he shoved Kaius in the shoulder with a heavy paw, shaking him out of his thoughts.

“Kaius, you dolt. I’m not that desperate—I think there are direct benefits to us as a team that you’re not considering. Though, I do think you’re discounting the beneficial impact that a growing group of Observed delvers would have on this shitshow.” Porkchop sighed, pulling back.

“Look, the guild is going to find out at some point—if not from this honour, then another of the new ones related to the phase change. Can you guarantee that we will be the first to kill a Tyrant? Or deal with whatever a Crucible is? Or be the first to finish all three Aspects, or anything else we don’t even know exists? You know all of those are likely to come with Honours.” he continued.

Kaius groaned, leaning back onto his hands. Porkchop was right—on that front at least. Especially on the front of Tyrants. No doubt they were strong, and the guild was the first contacted to deal with threats like that. Even if the first to kill one was massively higher level, he had no reason to think that it would disqualify them—his own honour for discovering glyph binding hadn’t had any such limitations.

“And when they find out, it’ll be immediately obvious why we’re so strong—they’ll know. Not just that we have Honours, but that we have hidden them.” Kaius whispered, his eyes boring holes into the ground.

“Exactly.” Porkchop nodded. “We may as well leverage this to gain trust, before our secrecy is discovered anyway.”

“So that’s just it, then? We’re doomed to be discovered, to lose our advantage over the competition? Lose our bonuses to others?” Kaius muttered, a bitter frustration within him. It felt like every time he tried to secure safety for himself and those closest to him, the world conspired to rip it all away.

Porkchop scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Okay, now you’re just being dramatic.”

Scowling back at his brother, Kaius still did his best to reign in his gut reaction. Porkchop was right—moping was pointless. If it was bound to happen, then Porkchop had the right of it.

They should be planning on how best to use it to their advantage.

Kaius took a breath, and nodded, doing his best to set his reservations to the side. “Alright then, you mentioned I'd missed a way we could benefit from this—what’ve you got.”

Porkchop shook himself, happy that he’d gotten through to Kaius. He sat up quickly.

“Okay, first, I don’t think that we should be too worried about losing our advantages—or too many firsts. We both have completed legacies, multiple Honours from our unclassed period, and Heroic classes—that’s a large gap for people to catch up, and it gives us a large advantage on getting more.”

That was admittedly true, though it still felt unnatural to willingly hand over the tools for people to bridge even some of that distance. He nodded anyway.

“The thing is though, even if we do lose a first bonus here or there, I think sharing with the guild would net us more Honours in the long run.”

How exactly did that work? Kaius gave his brother a look, cocking his brow—who promptly responded with an exasperated stare.

“For the sake of all that the Matriarchs hold dear—Kaius, we don’t exactly have a book of their names and their requirements. We have enough to guess at some, but the vast majority of those depend on our capability to kill things stronger than us, and finish our aspects faster than others. What do you think would happen if the entire guild was looking for them? They’d discover things we hadn’t even thought to try!”

Kaius rocked back on his hands, staring at his brother in shock. In all his visceral hatred of sharing dangerous secrets, he’d gotten so caught up in the idea of people competing with them for the same Honours that he hadn’t even considered the aspect of finding them in the first place.

Porkchop was…right. That was a significant benefit. Even if they lost a couple of firsts, if they could get access to the requirements of others it would more than outweigh the downsides.

Especially since sharing wouldn’t exactly take away the advantages they had already gained. They’d be in a far better position to attempt challenges for honours than others.

It was just…would there really be people skilled enough and crazy enough to attempt the sort of deadly feats that an Honour required, just on the vague hunch that it might pay off?

Porkchop, of course, had already thought about that.

“Of course they will—sure, most people avoid challenges, but not everyone. There are people who’ve earned Rare and Unusual classes through their own merit, Ianmus is a perfect example. Besides, I'm sure there’s all sorts of obscure minor Honours that will be less risky to attempt. We got one for living in the Depths for a year, and we could have done that without ever fighting a Champion or Guardian.”

Kaius drummed his hand against his knee, thinking. The more time he mulled it over, the more he realised that Porkchop had a good point. They had much to gain, and only a little to lose. Rieker and Ro were sworn to secrecy, and would be oath-bound to assist them. They would be able to insulate them from suspicion—or at least keep their secret until they were strong enough it wouldn’t matter.

Beyond that…the most elite and promising guild members growing even more powerful would only benefit everyone, and creating a knowledge sharing network would benefit them directly.

If they got in early, shared that Honours existed now—they could beat others to the punch. Try to influence a program similar to the knowledge sharing of Aspects and share the details of their knowledge package so that the information could never be lost.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me.” Kaius finally said.

Chuffing in surprise, Porkchop launched himself at Kaius in excitement—pressing him to the ground with a heavy warm weight.

“I knew I was right!” Porkchop teased, ignoring Kaius’s muffled protests and attempts to shove him off.

New n𝙤vel chapters are published on novelbuddy.cσ๓.

Kaius resorted to ramming his thumb under one of his brother’s ribs, digging it in painfully and causing Porkchop to yelp and leap off of him.

“Oaf.” he said with a grin, pushing himself into a sitting position. “Like I was saying—we still need to discuss it with Ianmus. It is as much his secret as it is our own, we’re a team and we can’t decide something like this for him unilaterally.”

“Of course.” Porkchop replied, unconcerned as he rolled onto his back and went back to staring at the night sky. “You said that people name groups of stars, right? What are those ones?” he continued, pointing at a cluster of bright lights in the heavens above.

Kaius shook his head, amazed at Porkchop’s ability to change the subject.

“The bottom half of The Miner, those are his boots.” Kaius replied, before Porkchop pointed at another, and then another—asking him to name the constellations Father had taught him as a boy.

Time flew by, and before Kaius knew it, the tiredness that had eluded him earlier had him wrapped up tight.

They retired, ready to continue their journey tomorrow—and ask Ianmus what he thought of Porkchop’s plan.